What it costs to run a coffee estate, and what it yields.

Checked on 8 August 2026. Rates, rules and portals in Karnataka change, sometimes at short notice. Treat this as an orientation, not as advice on your own transaction, and have your advocate confirm anything that decides money.

Yield, and why published averages mislead

National figures for 2025-26 put Arabica yield at roughly 384 kg per hectare and Robusta at about 1,276 kg per hectare, both down slightly on the year. That is around 155 kg and 516 kg per acre respectively.

Karnataka-specific Robusta estimates have been quoted lower, in the region of 850 to 900 kg per hectare, roughly 340 to 365 kg per acre. We give you both because they disagree, and a range you can see is more useful than an average that hides the disagreement.

Either way, treat these as orientation. A specific estate's yield turns on plant age, shade management, water, pruning discipline, borer history and the last three seasons of weather. The only figure worth planning on is that estate's own crop records across several years, and a seller who cannot produce them is telling you something.

Where the money goes in a year

The recurring cost heads on a working plantation are broadly these: labour, which dominates everything else and rises sharply at harvest because picking is done by hand; fertiliser and inputs, including lime, manure and plant protection; shade and pruning work; weeding, typically several rounds a year; processing, whether pulping, drying and curing on the estate or paid out to a curing works; transport of crop off the estate, which is a real line item when the road is poor; power and fuel for pumps and machinery; and maintenance of roads, drains, fencing and buildings.

The Coffee Board's own comparison is that Robusta's average cost of cultivation runs roughly 30 per cent below Arabica's. That single figure explains a great deal about why the two crops suit different buyers: Arabica earns more per kilogram and costs more, in money and in attention, to produce.

We have deliberately not put rupee figures against these heads. Costs on a five-acre holding worked by the family and a 60-acre estate running permanent labour lines are different businesses, and a per-acre average across them would mislead you in whichever direction you happen to sit. Tell us the size and belt you are considering and we will give you real numbers from properties we have actually transacted.

The capital side

Beyond the purchase, the items that commonly need capital are: water, whether a borewell, a tank, a check dam or pumping and piping, and this is usually the first and most important; access, meaning the estate road, culverts and drainage, which quietly determines your transport cost forever; processing equipment, a pulper, a drying yard, sometimes a small curing setup; buildings, the bungalow, labour lines and stores; fencing and boundary establishment; replanting where blocks are old or borer has taken plants out; and machinery, sprayers, pumps, and a vehicle that can actually get up the road in July.

Replanting deserves separate thought. A neglected estate is cheaper for a reason, and the rehabilitation cost plus three to five lean years before the new plants carry properly belong in your arithmetic from the start, not as a surprise in year two.

How to think about the return

Coffee is an agricultural business exposed to weather, price and labour availability, and 2025-26 was a reminder of all three: persistent rain from mid-May to mid-November, leaf and stem rot, berry drop, and a national crop that came in below the Coffee Board's own post-blossom forecast.

Buyers who do best here are usually clear about which of three things they want: income from a working plantation, a place the family returns to, or an appreciating asset in a district where good land is finite. Those lead to different properties. Our ROI calculator lets you model the first with your own assumptions rather than ours.